


in that dream i'm as old as the mountains

by jontinf



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-14
Updated: 2014-05-14
Packaged: 2018-01-24 17:03:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1612673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jontinf/pseuds/jontinf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen shares news with Merlin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in that dream i'm as old as the mountains

**Author's Note:**

> This is an excerpt from a story I wrote before season four that would have focused on Arthur and Guinevere’s heir, a daughter, and the later days of Arthur’s reign. This scene would have been one of the first scenes of the story.

They still consider this space as belonging to Gaius, with all his books and poultices, how it always smells so deeply of thyme. Even the current sole occupant of these quarters feels it so, especially him.

This is where she finds herself looking for a cure for nausea and a friend to tell the news.

Gwen breathes in the growing feeling of disappointment when Merlin is nowhere to be found, bed sheets unbothered and dishes left unwashed. He is no doubt off doing something precarious and foolish, perhaps with a knight in tow, perhaps with her precarious and foolish brother, whom she hasn’t seen since yesterday.

“Gwen?”

She brightens when she hears his voice, spinning around and ready to let slip everything.

He stands in front of her with blood shot eyes, cheeks hidden by two-day-old stubble, the rest of him covered in soot and who knows what else. The skin at the top of his forehead is raw from a recently inflicted wound.

Gwen sighs. “Oh, Merlin.”

Truth is that sometimes she’s grateful for every recklessly brave, inattentive, and eccentric bone in his body, what used to get him thrown in the stocks and forced to hours of lectures on polishing and bee keeping. It is one of the few constants she can rely on.

But she’s genuinely terrified that this is also what’ll actually kill him in the end.

He enters the room, and with a good-natured wave of the hand, conveys that all is well. “Wyvern,” he explains, “lots of Wyvern.”

“You didn’t take anyone with you?”

“I had it under control.”

She gently pushes back wisps of his hair to examine his forehead. “I can see that.”

He rolls his eyes but then sees something in hers. “You’re here to tell me something.”

Gwen shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. Well, it does, but I don’t want to tell you when you’re covered in soot… and bleeding. That looks awful.”

He chuckles softly. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

When she says nothing, he draws back and starts to blink slowly. After dealing with wyvern and other sorts of gory draconica, this is what really shocks him. He asks her again in an anxious half-whisper. “Are you?”

Gwen bites her lip, trying to suppress every feeling from exploding out of her. “Arthur doesn’t know yet.” She pauses and looks at her shoes as she lets a content expression blossom on her face. “I just… needed to find someone to practice… telling.”

The only thing he knows to do at that moment is to hug her tightly, clumsily leaning down and wrapping his arms around her shoulders, his jaw hanging in a grin so mad and wide, as though he’s never had anything to grieve for in his life.

“Your dress.” He lets her go to see the front of her bright blue gown ruined. “I’m sorry.” She laughs and really couldn’t care less, instead holding both of his hands as tightly as he had just held her. “And you didn’t get to practice telling,” he adds apologetically.

“Perhaps I won’t need to if it’s so obvious.”

“Well, it is Arthur.”

She shoots him a look that says _be nice_ and continues beaming warmly in silence. Their arms sway gently between them as she takes a deep breath and prepares to say it for the first time, the words carrying as much power as any words of magic could ever have.

“I’m pregnant.”

Instinctively, Merlin goes to hug her again, stopping mid-action, hands hovering in the air when he realizes he’ll get her even dirtier. She shoves him playfully, throwing her arms enthusiastically around his neck.

*

They sit closely at his worktable, knees knocking against each other as she soaks a small piece of cloth in water.

“You don’t have to go to the trouble, Gwen. It just needs a spell.”

“I know.” She dabs the cloth to his temple, wincing slightly when he flinches at the stinging. “Sometimes it’s good to know there are those who would go to the trouble for you, Merlin.”

She looks him square in the eye, succinct and doting all at once before returning to clean the wound. His gaze hangs heavy with affection, a part of him flummoxed at her speaking as though she’s forgotten all the things that he’s asked of her in the past, her obliviousness to her doing anything to move him.

But he also knows that her mind hums right now with the idea of a child and everything this means.

The tips of Merlin’s fingers gently fiddle with the sleeve of her gown. “Do you know what’s also good?”

“What’s that?”

“Naming it after me.”

She smiles, lips pursed small and sweet. “Right after I tell Arthur that he’s going to be a father, you can tell him the name you’ve chosen for it.”

They’re grinning again at each other like two foolhardy children, brimming with a thousand schemes, relishing in ways to tease their king.

A figure darkens the doorway, and Merlin sees that it’s Leon, and he immediately worries that they’ve just spilled the big secret. Leon looks distant, as though he’s too focused on controlling his apprehension to overhear any chatter of names and heirs to realms.

Merlin greets him. “Sir Leon.”

At first, Gwen is amused, mistakenly thinking that this is yet another name suggestion, but then she notices his expression and turns around to face Leon, the cloth in her hand still perched over Merlin’s skin.

Leon bows to Gwen, her smile faltering when she spots the commiseration dimly flickering on his face for the news that he brings.

“The King requests both your presences. It’s the Lady Morgana.”


End file.
